Hiring a senior executive should be one of the most strategic levers for growth. Too often, it’s a gamble.
Nearly half of all executives hired into new roles fail within 18 months (Harvard Business Review). And when they do, the cost goes far beyond severance or a search fee. According to SHRM and Lou Adler, a bad executive hire can cost up to 15 times their salary. It’s not just a financial hit, it’s lost momentum, missed goals, turnover in their teams, and strategies that never make it off the slide.
This kind of failure doesn’t just hurt. It stalls progress. It erodes trust. It takes the energy out of a company.
Image by Ryoji Iwata
Why Do So Many Executive Hires Fail?
- Unstructured interviews have a predictive validity of just 0.38 (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998)
- Education and likability often skew decisions, introducing bias with little insight (Wingate & Bourdage, 2024; Rivera, 2012)
- Because despite the stakes, too many hiring decisions still rely on instinct, charisma, or the polish of a CV.
And none of those things predict how someone will actually do once they’re in the seat.
We know this. The data has been clear for decades: Cultural mismatch is still the number one reason leaders fail early (Leadership IQ).
Meanwhile, structured interviews (0.51), cognitive ability tests (0.65), and real work samples (0.54) are far more predictive. The science is there, we just have to use it.
So why don’t we?
Because too many processes still reward what looks good on paper. Performance theatre wins. Prestige wins. The candidate who tells the best story in the interview room gets the offer. But strong leadership isn’t about being polished. It’s about showing up and delivering in your environment, with your challenges.
Real leadership is messy. It’s adaptive. It requires learning fast, leading through ambiguity, aligning people, and making hard decisions that stick. That doesn’t show up in a CV headline.
In fact, research from Adam Grant and others has shown that adaptive and proactive leadership traits like learning agility and resilience, correlate more strongly with team success than traditional measures of experience or title.
Companies that consistently hire great executives do a few things differently. They define success based on context (strategy, growth stage, real challenges). They evaluate real capability using structured interviews and role-relevant assessments. And they align decision-making across stakeholders through a clear, consistent process.
In his book Hire With Your Head, Lou Adler said, “Define the job, not the person. Define success, not the skills.” Hiring the right executive isn’t easy, but it is possible. And it starts with a better process.
At Susan Pike & Partners, we help you define the job, identify the right competencies for this job, and structure your interviews around business impact. We design interview plans, provide assessment tools, and bring AI-powered insights to help your team make confident, evidence-based decisions.
If you’re ready to change how you hire leaders, we’d love to talk.
